People use portable communication devices primarily for voice communications and music listening enjoyment. Although the portable communication devices support multiple types of media experiences such as music listening and phone calls, they are not generally capable of handling a user's interactive experience. For instance, when listening to music, a user may simultaneously receive a phone call or attempt to leave a voice message. The portable communication device generally supports only one media function at a time, and thus attempts to gracefully close or pause one media experience before starting the next media experience.
When a user is wearing earphones or a headset, there are no general guidelines for the communication device to follow to determine which media experience receives primary attention. Further, the communication device may become confused when multiple media experiences are occurring simultaneously, for instance, when the communication device is attempting to process voice when a user is talking at the same time music is playing and background noise is prevailing in the environment. The microphone can pick up environmental sounds such as traffic, construction, and nearby conversations as well as the music and the user's voice. In such an arrangement, the communication device can experience difficulty in discriminating the user's voice from voices in the background and music in the foreground.
Although audio processing technologies can incorporate noise suppression, the communication device or headset is generally sound agnostic and cannot differentiate between sounds. A user desiring to speak into the earpiece may be competing with other people's voices in his or her proximity and also the music he or she is listening to.
A need therefore exists for a method and device of personalized voice operated control.